Hypervelocity Sensor Demo at Ames

Hypervelocity Wavefront Detection with Ultrawide Bandwidth Pressure Transducers

NanoSonic recently developed ultra-wide bandwidth, nanomembrane high-frequency (NM-HF) based pressure transducers for hypervelocity wavefront detection applications, using silicon-on-insulator (SOI) techniques in combination with nanocomposite materials. Customers for such ultra-wide bandwidth pressure transducers are high-speed vehicle and flight control system designers and manufacturers. NanoSonic has demonstrated NM-HF ultra-wide bandwidth pressure transducers with a bandwidth from DC to 5MHz and data interface in subsonic, transonic and hypersonic wind tunnels, and shock tubes in both university and government facilities.

The ultrawide bandwidth pressure transducers and data interface include: a carry case for field tests, 2 NM-HF ultrawide bandwidth pressure sensors, a custom signal conditioning unit, a 12 VDC power supply, and a custom GUI-based data interface for electronic transmission.

 

A hypervelocity field test was conducted at the NASA Ames Electric Arc Shock Tube (EAST) facility. Specifically, two NM-HF transducers were mounted in the same axial location as two commercial PCB sensors, resulting in upstream and downstream measurements approximately 2.5 inches (6.35 cm) apart. Multiple tests verified NanoSonic’s transducers are functional in Mach 2.0 and 2.1 test environments.  Both pressure readouts and time-of-flight calculations are consistent with facility data. The high-speed flow experiment demonstrated the NM pressure transducers’ performance under harsh environments and provided quantitative measurements of shock profiles.

Two NanoSonic transducers mounted for hypervelocity measurements at the NASA Ames Electric Arc Shock Tube facility (Source: NASA Ames)

 

For more information, please contact info@nanosonic.com.